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Yes: Make Them Accountable

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By Doris Weatherford / Special To The Tribune

Published: January 27, 2008

When you walk towards your polling place on Jan. 29, you may see someone with a clipboard or card table. This person will be a volunteer, a fellow Hillsborough County citizen, who wants your signature on a petition to change the structure of our county commission.

He or she will be donating time with Citizens for Equal County Representation (CECR). We want to put an amendment to the county charter on the November ballot to eliminate the commission's at-large seats, replacing them with a system in which all commissioners are elected from specific districts.

Most of today's voters are too young or too new to the area to remember the great scandal of the 1980s, when several county commissioners went to prison for corruption. All had been elected at-large; that is, in a system without any representative geographical districts. When the reform county charter was written, we expanded to seven commissioners, four of whom are elected from districts, while three seats remained at-large.

Especially because of the tremendous growth of suburbs without any municipal government during the last three decades, we believe it is past time to take the next step and eliminate at-large seats entirely. The person at your polls will want to talk with you about these ABCs of reform:

Accountability: Ask the average person (or even yourself) who represents you on the County Commission, and almost everyone stumbles. Some can name the person who lives in their area and holds the single-member seat, but few can name the three at-large people who ostensibly represent them. It is a system virtually designed for a lack of accountability.

Although two-thirds of us now live outside of the city of Tampa, six of the seven commissioners have Tampa postal addresses - while the county has 17 defined Post Office communities, ranging alphabetically from Apollo Beach to Wimauma.

Balance: Reform will bring a better balance both in geographic terms and in representation of minority groups. Communities of common interests will be grouped together by the non-partisan Planning Commission, and areas such as those south of the Alfafia River, which rarely have had a resident on the commission, finally will have proper representation. Our expectation is that African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods also will have a more defined voice. The proposed system will give you more direct access to your government because your county commissioner will live in your neighborhood, and all areas will be fairly represented.

Campaign Reform: With more than 600,000 registered voters in the county, a candidate for an at-large seat must raise more than a half-million dollars to have a chance at victory. Seven single-member districts will have only about 85,000 registered voters to reach, and so the cost of running will be much less. Under the current system, only candidates who are incumbents, personally wealthy, or backed by special interests can raise enough money to have a realistic shot at winning. Single-member districts, in contrast, will allow for grass-roots campaigns that can win with volunteers, instead of depending on the name recognition of impersonal and expensive advertising.

There will be a separate amendment on the November ballot to create an elected county mayor. CECR is not taking a position on that amendment - but the possibility of its passage is one reason why we undertook our work now. If voters authorize a county mayor, the current countywide commissioners could create conflict, especially if any received more votes than the mayor.

More important, the CECR proposal will help eliminate confusion about the responsibilities of the legislative body (the Board of County Commissioners) and the executive (the mayor). Commissioners could more effectively represent their districts, while the mayor would speak for the entire county. This is the way that government functions at the federal and state level, and we believe that model also should be used in a county with more population than eight states. And if the county mayor amendment does not pass, we still will have a more representative form of government with seven single-member districts.

Between now and November, there will be lots of opportunity for further discussion - but there is not much time to make that discussion possible. If this is to go on the ballot, we - a group of volunteers with less than $500 in the bank - must have 37,202 approved petitions by May 20. Please go to www.7singlemember.org for more information, and please help us open this community conversation by signing a petition.

Doris Weatherford is a Tampa author whose most recent book is "Real Women."

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